In the mid-1970s I found an old diary in a house that was about to be demolished in Daytona Beach, Fla. The diary was written by a 24-year-old woman and it recounted her December 1905 trip on the maiden voyage of the ocean liner Carmania from England to New York.

In 2010, I posted a transcript from the diary and scans of various photos and other items. Last year, the woman’s great-granddaughter found the post and left a comment on the post. We began corresponding and I connected with other family members. Soon a plan emerged for us to meet and for me to return the diary to the family. Continue reading →

Emily made it to mile marker 101 and beyond. Yesterday Laura and I sat with her on our vet’s office floor as he injected the drugs that ended her chronic pain and her life. Our basset hound was two months shy of 16 years old. Emily overcame every health problem she ever had: a bad heart, arthritis, bloat, and the full spectrum of infections that dogs can get but she couldn’t outrun time.

On my bike ride this morning along the Atlanta BeltLine’s Eastside Trail I passed local folk musician Moonshine walking and playing her fiddle. She was alone and it reminded me that I hadn’t seen her with her dog, Bon Jovi, in a while. When I met them last year, Bon Jovi wasn’t doing well and I couldn’t bring myself to stop this morning and ask Moonshine about Bon Jovi. If I’m right — and I hope that I’m not — I hope that Emily has met Bon Jovi and they are off exploring the best trails they can find.

Emily D. Basset, Aug. 10, 1998 – May 23, 2014.

The former H.H. Hay building is located at the intersection of Congress and Free streets in Portland, Maine. Geographer Loretta Lees documented gentrification in this district as a case study of “small city gentrification” [PDF]. Lees wrote in 2003,

Recessions in the late 1980s and early 1990s slowed but did not entirely stop the pace of redevelopment downtown. By the mid-1990s investment was spreading up the slope from the Old Port and along Congress Street under the auspices of the city’s Arts District and the philanthropic efforts of Portland native and microchip heiress Elizabeth Noyce.

The City of Portland documented the area in a historic designation report for the Congress Street Historic District:

Congress Street is Portland’s “Main Street,” the peninsula’s primary east-west commercial and transportation axis. The richness and diversity of its architecture and public spaces, particularly along the section extending from Franklin Arterial to Bramhall Square, constitutes a unique record of Portland’s residential and commercial
development history …

… It was not until the 1970’s that Portland’s economic stagnation began a long slow path to recovery. With the availability of Federal “Urban Renewal” money, the ambitious Maine Way public infrastructure program signaled a new interest in and concern about downtown by city leaders … At the same time historic commercial buildings such as the Congress Square Hotel (#110) and the Upper H.H. Hay Building (#109) were rehabilitated for new uses.

Last week’s Society for Industrial Archeology conference was based in the heart of gentrified Portland and the conference hotel was only a few blocks away from this highly photogenic building. Below are some views that show the building between c. 1890 and now.

H.H. Hay building, Portland, ca. 1890. Credit: Maine Memory Network, Maine Historical Society.

Credit: Congress Street Historic District Designation Report, City of Portland, Me.

Congress and Free streets, May 2014.

Hay building, May 2014.

© 2014 D.S. Rotenstein